Tempting: Act I
SCENE 8
(In Immaculata’s kitchen.)
IMMACULATA
Father says you can paint in the church.
ANDY
What?
IMMACULATA
He said an angel scene over the baptismal font.
ANDY
Not on your life.
IMMACULATA
He’s taking my word you’re good enough. He never
even seen one thing you painted. But he knows I’ll kill you if you mess up.
ANDY
You can always paint over paint. You both know that. I’m
not doing it anyway.
IMMACULATA
For once I get permission to do one thing I want over there.
ANDY
I told you no.
IMMACULATA
You piece of crap.
ANDY
Very nice, Ma.
IMMACULATA
What do you expect? You treat me like crap.
ANDY
I do not. I’m just not doing anything in that church.
IMMACULATA
You dishonor me with Father.
ANDY
In your mind. Who cares? Who cares what he thinks?
IMMACULATA
I don’t care. I could care less about the whole thing.
ANDY
You make me crazy. Make up your mind.
IMMACULATA
I never get what I want anyway. Why should this be any different?
ANDY
Here we go.
IMMACULATA
I hate this place and everyone in it.
ANDY
Warn me if you’re going to start throwing things.
IMMACULATA
I won’t waste my time.
ANDY
Like that time you threw every single thing in here into the
backyard, in the middle of a storm. It was raining so hard, remember? You threw pots, pans, cans, eggs, flour. What a mess.
IMMACULATA
I was mad. So what? Everybody gets mad. What about the church?
ANDY
The only thing I’d paint in that church is naked women
having a good time with each other.
IMMACULATA
It would serve him right.
ANDY
Who?
IMMACULATA
That Father. He won’t let me read the readings. Not
even try out. Not even at the 6:30 a.m. Mass. Nobody’s even there half the time. I can say all those words Ephesians
Galatians Corinthians all that stuff. He lets that Korean woman read and nobody can understand a word she says. Sounds like
ching chong mong ching chong fong.
ANDY
So you want me to paint a lesbian orgy in the church?
IMMACULATA
It would serve him right. Serve all of them right. Hypocrites.
Liars. (mimics) We want everyone to be part of our church family. Except not you, the one with the hideous face. We don’t
want you up front. You, we keep locked in the basement.
ANDY
Come on. Don’t tempt me. I’ll do it.
IMMACULATA
Do it. I dare you.
ANDY
There’s a big empty white wall over there. It’s
pretty tempting. I could paint a lot of women doing a lot of things to each other on a big empty wall like that.
IMMACULATA
Go ahead.
ANDY
You’re a funny kind of mother.
IMMACULATA
How would you know? You got any other ones to go by?
ANDY
I never heard of a mother telling her kid to do something
bad like that.
IMMACULATA
Nobody gets killed. It’s just paint.
ANDY
I’d probably get caught before I was done anyway.
IMMACULATA
Yeah. My luck.
ANDY
Your luck. It’s me doing it.
IMMACULATA
I’d get blamed.
ANDY
How do you figure that?
IMMACULATA
Everyone hates me. They look for things to blame me for. I
got blamed for the poinsettias that died last year. And I had nothing to do with them. I didn’t buy them. I didn’t
arrange them at the altar. They said I watered them too much. I spit on them all. I know how to water a plant. I didn’t
kill those stinking poinsettias. I hate those women. They’re all against me. And Father sides with them every time.
ANDY
I could work at night and cover it up good.
IMMACULATA
You and your old man. What is it with the night? You’re
reverse people. Everything opposite. Work at night.
ANDY
We’re not normal. We’re oddballs, all of us in
this house.
IMMACULATA
Speak for yourself.
ANDY
You don’t think we’re odd?
IMMACULATA
Why do you waste your time thinking things like that? You
are who you are. I am who I am. He is who he is.
ANDY
I am who I am and who the hell am I?
IMMACULATA
If you don’t know, I can’t tell you.
ANDY
I am . . . an artist.
IMMACULATA
Short and sweet.
ANDY
Yes . . . an artist . . . making an installation.
IMMACULATA
What do you mean, like a new hot water heater?
ANDY
A painter . . .whose first installation shows her to be an
artist of startling originality . . . a painter who dares to attack a homophobic institution from within, on its very walls.
YES. YES. It’s like tattooing the Pope with a rainbow flag. It’s like forcing the Bishops to wear pink triangles.
I love it. I love it. I totally love it.
IMMACULATA
Pink triangles? What’s that, some kind of gay jewelry?
ANDY
More like Nazi jewelry.
IMMACULATA
So you’re going to make the Bishop wear one? I’d
like to see that.
ANDY
Painting the church is enough, Ma. I’m going to do it.
I’m going to talk to Father.
Copyright Kathy Anderson 2007
